The random thought just popped into my mind and I figured to hell with it, I'll ask!

For me personally, never had anything "explode" but I have had a powerboard and a PSU spark out on me before. The PSU was just a computer that I was fixing ("Its not working anymore" said the person who it belonged to, plugged it in, BZZZ, O-K thats why) but the power-board was for some equipment in a multimedia show and killed every GPO in the theater where we were setting up. Luckily my boss had a funny feeling the night before and made sure to brush up on where the breakers were located but needless to say we sidelined that particular piece of equipment!

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A few weeks ago I visited our new site to have a nosey around the proposed server room. As it was a former AVG building, the room already had a cabinet, so stuck my head inside to check that the cabling looked o.k, when my boss said "what's this cable for?", all of a sudden, loud bang, big blue flash, yeah, live mains power cable that wasn't actually connected to anything and had just touched the cab I was holding on to...

I never witnessed it myself, but when I was on holiday a few years ago, one of our UPSs started to smoke and smoulder. I got a panicked phone call from one of our members of staff asking what they should do. Well, if something is smoking and smouldering, I'd say vacate the building and raise the fire alarm - but that's probably just me. :)

In the end one of our directors bravely went into the server room, unplugged the UPS and then switched it off - which did the job of course. The server attached to the UPS luckily survived that, because it had already received a signal from the UPS to shut itself down - and to get the hell out of there, which the server was unable to do of course.

Not really much of a horror story but I owned a old(ish) 23" LCD panel from Acer and I used it fairly frequently as a gaming screen, I was once using it when I heard an odd 'popping' noise, the panel started to go discoloured when I heard a loud 'bang', I turned it off and looked down the back of the monitor and I could see a red glow, straight away unplugged it and contacted Amazon (Where I bought it), they offered a refund and I didn't buy another Acer. ;)

I have had an ageing UPS burst into flames and produce a lot of smoke. It was during a relocation and happened when the UPS was disconnected from the mains. Fortunately it was the last item remaining in the rack, all the servers that had been above it had just been removed.

I have had an ageing UPS burst into flames and produce a lot of smoke. It was during a relocation and happened when the UPS was disconnected from the mains. Fortunately it was the last item remaining in the rack, all the servers that had been above it had just been removed.

I have had an ageing UPS burst into flames and produce a lot of smoke. It was during a relocation and happened when the UPS was disconnected from the mains. Fortunately it was the last item remaining in the rack, all the servers that had been above it had just been removed.

Plugged it in. It went bang instantly, caught fire. I picked it up and thew it out the 5th floor window.

A PSU -

Dell light stated faulty PSU, read the troubleshooting manual, hold down the power button for 15 seconds it said. On the 14th. It exploded. I had it sitting in my lap. Looked like Einstein for the rest of the day!

A HDD -

During a mountain of backups. Smelt smoke. Turned round to see the PCB browning on the HDD. Still not sure how that happened. Was my 1st live PCB swap that one too....

Oh and two floods a fire and a pile of "I knocked it over's" from users.

Years ago I was doing the lights for a show at school. Somebody had just replaced the bulb in a can. Rigged it, plugged it in and stood back to admire their handiwork. I slowly ran the fader up when the light coming from this thing dimmed, then got *really* bright. Then it went boom. Showering the stage (two hours to showtime) in hot glass.

The person who replaced the bulb didn't wear gloves, despite having been issued some. For those who this doesn't make sense to, the oils from your fingertips create spots where the glass doesn't expand at the same rate at the rest of the glass, causing structural failure. They also didn't put the safety screen back on it. *grump*

Plugged it in. It went bang instantly, caught fire. I picked it up and thew it out the 5th floor window.

A PSU -

Dell light stated faulty PSU, read the troubleshooting manual, hold down the power button for 15 seconds it said. On the 14th. It exploded. I had it sitting in my lap. Looked like Einstein for the rest of the day!

A HDD -

During a mountain of backups. Smelt smoke. Turned round to see the PCB browning on the HDD. Still not sure how that happened. Was my 1st live PCB swap that one too....

Oh and two floods a fire and a pile of "I knocked it over's" from users.

Does your company have a special policy to cover the things you touch? ;)

Years ago I was doing the lights for a show at school. Somebody had just replaced the bulb in a can. Rigged it, plugged it in and stood back to admire their handiwork. I slowly ran the fader up when the light coming from this thing dimmed, then got *really* bright. Then it went boom. Showering the stage (two hours to showtime) in hot glass.

The person who replaced the bulb didn't wear gloves, despite having been issued some. [...]

It worked fine for the first week we had it, but then we docked it. I was standing over it talking to the user and I could smell burning components, I thought where is that coming from and as I looked down I could see plumes of smoke coming form the USB 3.0 ports. I thought oh crap here we go and immediately undocked it and pulled the battery, the laptop smelled heavily of burnt electronics after that and I raised the problem with Lenovo.

Unfortunately due to the unusual nature our NBDOS meant nothing and it took a week to get through to the right person high enough up the ladder to arrange for the laptop and all accessories to be returned. It turned out Lenovo never had a T430s do that before and they were consulting with their legal department on how to handle it. Frankly I couldn't care no one was hurt and it was basically a DOA devices so I just wanted a new laptop but it took a month before the new one was shipped.

To be clear I still have a very good opinion of Lenovo and the support they provide, I consider them to be one of the best companies I've dealt with, if you have a fault there is no if or buts they simply get it rectified for you. I guess this T430s was just unusual and that's why it took more time.

A long time ago I was wiring a American 3 phase aluminium plug on a 3 Kw furnace and the resulting bang tripped the main fuse in the building, took my shirt to the elbow, my watch and gave everyone an unexpected tea break.

I worked a lot with HP's D530's and RP 5000's. A good proportion of them have glue in the PSU that's hygroscopic.﻿ This normally wouldn't present an issue as the warmth of the PSU tends to keep it fairly dry. When they've been powered off and stored for a while, the glue gets *really* moist. This tends to result in a spectacular bang and a nice flash as they short out.

I had a bunch of them to do, so I had 75 plugged in on a data erasure rack. Three shelves high, six PC's to a shelf, two racks of 35. One had already blown the breaker, so I left the breaker off while I plugged the rest in. When I applied current to the rack by flipping the breaker, it can only be described as though a string of firecrackers went off. Thirty five machines blew seconds apart. A small pale of smoke hung in the air...

...not to be deterred, I applied current to the other rack to the same result. *BOOM*

The response from my boss? He just looked up, grinned at me and carried on typing his email.

Oh and those tap/water symbols on the Lenovo X1's... rubbish. Water does not come out the bottom, it comes out EVERYWHERE! (and ruins the laptop) ((no fire tho))

I've got that on my EliteBook - never wanted to try it, though.

When I had a bunch of thinkpads going for disposal, I did try it - you know, just to make sure it worked ;) and it kinda dribbled out of the bottom, onto the desk, with lots of nasty fluff and goo in the water.

I have had an ageing UPS burst into flames and produce a lot of smoke. It was during a relocation and happened when the UPS was disconnected from the mains. Fortunately it was the last item remaining in the rack, all the servers that had been above it had just been removed.

Yep same here UPS's going bad are never a pretty site and we had a nice old crt monitor really decide enough was enough and smoke and sparks came pouring out the back.

Many many years ago (mid 80's) I used to have a DEC PDP 11/83 which was running a Colour matching system, it was used in the Lab and Production so there were two Terminals (SuperBrains running CPM) which communicated with the master computer.

It was in a Papermill and the Labs and the Machine house were on opposite sides of the river, Ethernet was very new then and I had a box at either end of a wire which amplified converted the RS232 to an RS432 to increase the range of the signal and transmit it across across a shielded cable. During a thunder storm the lightning struck the cable and there was a loud popping noise followed by smoke coming from the RS432 boxes. Fortunately they absorbed all of the energy and neither of the terminals or the PDP were damaged, opening them up there were 8 chips on the board that had burst with bits of burnt Bakelite all over the inside of the case. Amazingly replacing the chips in the boxes restored them to working order - can you imagine "modern" equipment being repairable after something like this?

1) A PSU for a 3G router. My manager plugged it in hit the power switch and literally BANG and smoke and tripped the electrics

2) Old "flat" monitor. The monitor had been shaking a little on the display but I had wiggled the VGA and everything was okay so I went to lunch. Came back in the office and got a call to say "Simeon's monitor is on fire" I thought haha course it is... but it really was.